A week ago I run the first part of Death of a Tyrant, one of GRAmel's published adventures. While I don't like published adventures much, I bought this for it's background information but liked it enough to run it. If you keep reading, be aware that this post contains some spoilers about the first part of the adventure. This session log isn't as detailed as most others as it's about ready adventure, where a lot of material is written down; I'm still trying to tell about the events so that they open up to everyone.
I had run the beginning of the adventure in the last session - I hadn't planned it but the heroes failed to get riches from their earlier adventure and it was coming to them after all, so it was as good time as any. Anyway, in this session heroes went to Quollaba and to Snake inn, were lead to ruins near the city to hear an offer for killing the tyrant ruler of the city and accepted the offer - They recognized that one of the three conspirators that had offered them the job was apparently the short fat merchant lord they had seen in the city earlier.
The heroes investigated the area, found an abandoned building next to the temple and spent the night there to watch the temple. Next day, the day of the feast of the devoured sun when the assassination is supposed to take place, the heroes prepare their escape route (getting 4! raises), while Wũrful went to the temple of Ulasha to ask about the fang necklace he had found during the last session. He swallowed his rage when the high priest told that all magical items in the city belong to the tyrant and thanked him for bringing it to the priest and thought of coming back during the night of the assassination.
During THE night, Falchor the master shooter went in only with Tereis as his backup. The ritual took a long time, during which a drunk found the abandoned house's door just when guards saw him, stumbled in and was beaten up & dragged away by the guards. While the group wasn't revealed, they were locked in, but this was no issue because Würful heard this and the fleeing group was able to run from a window in a second floor, when the assassination took place surprisingly easily.
Chase to the gates
The group was chased by a cavalry unit that had just arrived to the temple place. This was the second time I was using my customized chase rules, which still need some playtesting. Me not stating clearly when to make checks caused some confusion as people made checks when they wanted - currently the initiative goes from back to front, and on Hazard rounds from front to back. Even if it makes things tense, it might make the chase a bit confusing and I may have to remove this backwards order. But the biggest issue with this chase was that I didn't think beforehand how the customized the adventure's chase events would work with the custom chase rules; the heroes got away way too easily, as +2 to chase rolls for 4 rounds too them off the chasers that rolled badly in seconds.
The payment
The heroes went back to the ruins where they were supposed to get their payment. Suspecting a trap, they spread up and when Godzul went to talk to the Captain Nekerios that was waiting for them, and spotted several dark-skinned men hiding around. When the captain told that he needed the promised gems more than the heroes and ordered his men to attack, the heroes were ready and immediately eliminated a few of the Kashiti mercenaries. There was still a large amount of them to fight.
The fight was quite slow; I tried to find out why as Savage Worlds can do much better - I guess too little sleep for me and everyone still being quite new to the system were the biggest reasons. During the fight, Kylis who's the tying factor in the game was very, very close to being killed - as he fell from the horseback for 21 damage after already having one wound. Luckily, he made the incapacitation roll and with a raise. But another thing was forgotten (Players attention, remember this!) - once per session, when you drop, you can make one last special action.
Falchor's hawk was killed as archers on the ruins didn't have much other viable targets. Godzul summoned a spirit of a betrayer, continuing to summon twisted servants that gave huge gang-up bonuses against horribly rolling captain Nekerios. Würful the barbarian finished him off with a frenzy attack aimed to the head, and even his Reinforced armor techniques weren't enough to save him.
The group collected the bagful of desert tears (gems) from the ground, Godzul used his healing skills to heal Kylis (who suddenly wasn't all that wounded - thanks to Heroic Healing rules I integrated partially) and took off towards north-east.